1. Technical Field
The invention disclosed broadly relates to data processing systems and more particularly relates to improvements in distributed image storage and retrieval systems.
2. Background Art
It is desirable to have a central corporate data base for most applications. This is where the master customer file is likely to reside. It is also where most of the corporate applications reside.
As an example, customer automobile insurance underwriting, i.e. the actual determination of the premium and issuing of the policy, is usually a centralized operation.
In determining the premium, miscellaneous documents are scanned into the system and are stored as images, i.e. driver's record, bill of sale, descriptions of special features on the car, etc. These documents, generally standard forms which have been completed, are required for underwiring and copies are kept in case of audit, error or challenges. But, there is very little unique information on the forms, e.g. whether the car has an air bag. The information that feeds the central application is usually decentralized and there is no need to transmit the backup data.
The original documents with the information come into a decentralized office, the information is extracted as coded data from the forms and images are made of the original documents. The distributed office may do the actual underwriting or merely send the coded data to the central location, and the distributed office maintains the original document images.
It is undesirable to ship the images of the original documents because they require fairly large data blocks, cost money to transmit, and they are rarely accessed.
If the customer moves during the policy period, the information about the move is entered into the central database, but the images of the original documents do not need to be moved.
When a customer moves to a new location, a new image file will be opened corresponding to the new location to accumulate images of further documents. However, occasionally it may be necessary to access the original file at the old location is a claim or some other problem occurs.